Duty
by Merlin Missy
Summary: The penultimate sacrifice.


Duty  
a Justice League story  
by Merlin Missy  
Copyright 2004  
PG

DC, Warner Brothers and the Cartoon Network own these  
people. There's something not quite right about that.

For Amy, who asked me to.

* * *

Wally sipped at his coffee; it was a fresh pot, too hot  
to chug. He should have gone with an iced mocha, but he  
was getting tired of the teasing. Just because he liked  
his coffee icy cold with double chocolate, whipped cream  
and sprinkles did not make him less of a man. Still,  
today it was "guys only," and he'd drunk the last of the  
soda on the Watchtower. 

"We need two people for the nineteenth." Superman made  
notes on their big erasable calendar while Wally covered  
his yawn.

He knew they had to ensure _somebody_ was on call at all  
times, but scheduling got tedious fast. Making sure  
they had a minimum of three meant a lot of cross-  
checking with work schedules and secret identities.  
J'onn was almost always on watch. Wally worked  
irregular hours when he was actually employed. Superman  
always seemed busy during the regular workweek. Bats  
was around whenever he felt like it, but he did take  
shifts. Everyone else filled in around them.

GL checked his organizer. "I can do it." John filled  
in a lot.

Wally checked his own pocket calendar, saw it was  
falling apart, and promptly forgot again as he had every  
other time he'd noticed. "I'm free." Superman marked  
his name down.

"Is that everything?" asked Batman, his voice tinny over  
the comm.

"Almost," said Supes. He was staring at a date on the  
whiteboard. "We need one more person on the twenty-  
second."

"Who ... " Wally started, but then he saw the calendar  
and his brain caught up.

"It's a Martian holy day."

"You _always_ say that," said Superman peevishly. J'onn  
stared back, mute but unwavering.

"I'm busy," said GL.

Wally went through every possible excuse. "I've got ...  
a date!" He stared at his calendar. The unfamiliar  
scribble grinned back at him: Melanie, Chez Wiz, 8pm.  
_Melanie?_

"Liar," said John, grabbing the calendar. March and  
April spilled to the floor. "Who's Melanie?"

Wally's brain went through a quick album of pretty  
faces. _Oh yes._ He'd met Melanie at the grocery store.  
She'd been blonde, cute, and not averse to going out  
with someone with eighteen boxes of cherry Pop Tarts in  
his basket. "Woman of my dreams, man." He snatched the  
remains of his pocket calendar back.

"Batman?"

"I've got a fundraiser." Occasionally Bats said things  
like that during these meetings. Wally suspected it was  
code for: "Bite me, Boy Scout."

"No you don't," said Superman.

"I'll start one."

Superman sighed. "Look, I had to do it last month."

"And we appreciated that," said Wally. "Really."

"I had a headache for three days when last I did it,"  
J'onn said. "Never again."

Wally asked, "Can't we just reorganize the schedule?  
Maybe give one of them a day off, switch it around ... "

"We tried that already," said Superman.

And that was that. No matter how much they switched  
around days, no matter what they did to prevent it,  
about every three or four weeks Diana and Hawkgirl  
pulled watch together. And some poor bastard was stuck  
with babysitting duty when they did.

"We could try letting them do it alone." Wally looked  
around hopefully, before he remembered the last time  
they'd tried that one.

It wasn't that the two female Leaguers hated each other.  
They were adults, and allies, and fine warriors both,  
and when they went into battle, no one questioned their  
loyalty to each other.

However.

During quieter times, they picked at one another, and  
they sniped, and they bickered. When they were in a  
room together without at least two other people around,  
or a supervillain to pummel, Wally started looking for  
large pieces of furniture to hide behind.

God help the man who looked like he was taking sides.

"I don't believe we want that option," J'onn said.

"No," echoed John.

Wally had done it twice. The first time, they'd fought  
a giant robot in Sierra Leone, and that had been all fun  
with lasers. The second time, the wire had been quiet  
all day. Then Diana made some pithy comment, possibly  
about the weather below them. Hawkgirl had replied with  
a touch more sarcasm than was justified. Diana said  
something uncomplimentary. Hawkgirl responded with a  
less than reasonable suggestion. And so on.

Trying to defuse the situation, Wally had volunteered an  
amusing remark, based on the original observation. They  
were unamused. The only thing that had saved him the  
embarrassment of getting his ass kicked was that he  
could outrun them both easily and lock himself in the  
kitchen for the next hour.

"Hawkgirl to Watchtower."

"Watchtower here," said Superman.

"Anything interesting going on up there?"

"Just some paperwork. Writing out the schedule for the  
next few weeks."

"Boring stuff, gotcha. I never seem to make it to that  
meeting."

"Don't worry about it," said Superman.

"Just let me know when I've got watch."

"Will do. Superman out." The comm went quiet.  
"Someone _has_ to take the shift."

"I'll do it next month," Batman said.

John added, "If he takes next month, I'll do the one  
after."

"I'm holding you both to those," said Superman. "Flash,  
are you _sure_?"

"Date."

"J'onn?"

"Holy day."

"Fine. I'll do it." Superman put his own name on the  
calendar.

Wally said, "The things you do for us, Big Guy ... "

"Shut up. You're doing the month after GL, I don't care  
what excuse you've got." Superman touched his ear  
again. "Watchtower to Wonder Woman."

"Diana here."

"We've just finished the schedule for the next few  
weeks. Do you want me to transmit it to you now?"

"It can wait." She paused. "I thought I requested to  
be a part of the scheduling meetings."

"Couldn't be helped," said Superman. "Maybe next month.  
Or the one after." Batman stayed silent over the comm.  
John twitched in his chair. Wally stared bleakly into  
his coffee, and wondered if he could manage a deep-space  
assignment for three months from now.

The world would never know the sacrifices they made in  
the name of duty.

* * *

The End 


End file.
